Eels: An Exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World's Most Mysterious Fish [Paperback]

James Prosek (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 11, 2011

“This is a delightful work with the urgency of a good detective story.” —Thomas McGuane

“I loved it! A beautiful adventure story of one of the most wide-spread and least-known but ecologically important fish.” —Bernd Heinrich, author of Summer World

Famous for his deeply informed, compulsively readable books on trout, writer-painter James Prosek (whom the New York Times has called “the Audubon of the fishing world”) takes on nature’s quirkiest and most enigmatic fish: the eel. Fans of Mark Kurlansky’s Cod and The Big Oyster or Trevor Corson’s The Secret Life of Lobsters will love Prosek’s probing exploration of the hidden deep-water dwellers. With characteristically captivating prose and lavish illustrations, Prosek demystifies the eel’s unique biology and bizarre mating routines, and illuminates the animal’s varied roles in the folklore, cuisine, and commerce of a variety of cultures.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ask your average North American: eels, those slimy snakelike creatures, are generally held in poor regard. For nature writer Prosek (Trout; Fly-Fishing the 41st), however, they are a compelling mystery, and in his riveting synthesis of cultural, geographical, and botanical sleuthing, he investigates their reputation at home and abroad. The author--for whom the eel was once merely bait for bass--delves into the closely held traditions of the Maori of New Zealand, where eels are revered; into the beliefs of the Micronesian island of Pohnpei, where eels are considered members of a tribal clan; into the heart of the largest seafood market in the world, in Japan, a nation that consumes more than 130,000 tons of eels each year; into the reclusive world of Eel Weir Hollow in the Catskills, where fisherman Ray traps and smokes as much as one ton of eels a season; and to the fabled Sargasso Sea, where eels are thought to start their trek to the world's lakes, rivers, and streams--though, even now, no one knows precisely where the world's population of eels spawns, an enduring scientific mystery awaiting a solution.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The freshwater eel is born in the Sargasso Sea, makes its way at random to a freshwater stream in Europe or the U.S. (and doesn’t make a mistake and end up on the wrong continent), and after many years makes its way back to the Sargasso to spawn and die. A baffling fish, there are 15 species of freshwater eels found all over the world. Prosek (Trout: An Illustrated History, 1996) points out that eels are not an easy fish to like; they’re snakelike and don’t act like normal fish (they can slither through the grass on wet nights to find food or new bodies of water). But his fascination with eels took him to New Zealand, where the longfin eel can live more than 100 years and grow to more than 80 pounds. Eels are big business in Japan. The tale of Ray Turner, a man who still fishes for eels the traditional way with a hand-built weir, is at the heart of the book, tying the mythology, the mystery, and the commerce of eels together into his story. --Nancy Bent --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (October 11, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060566124
• ISBN-13: 978-0060566128
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,157,008 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James Prosek is a writer and artist whose books include Trout: An Illustrated History; Joe and Me: An Education in Fishing and Friendship; The Complete Angler: A Connecticut Yankee Follows in the Footsteps of Walton; and Fly-Fishing the 41st. He lives in Easton, Connecticut.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A PLEASING AND INFORMATIVE READ September 14, 2010

By D. Blankenship HALL OF FAMETOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I personally found this to be an extremely fascinating read. The book of course is about eels; a fish that we really know very little about. But the book covers so much more that just this primary subject.

The author takes us from the United States, to New Zeeland and on to the orient and then the Polynesian Island. This work is not merely the study of a specific species of fish; it is also the study of a number of indigenous peoples around the world and their interaction with eels, both as a food source and that of a spiritual nature.

This work takes us unto the world of eels; eels as food, eels as religious symbols (for more than one culture) and eels as another indicator of the problems we are having in our environment.

The author has done what I would consider a good job on his research, but must admit that my endorsement in this area is rather shaky, as I knew absolutely nothing of eels before reading this work. My only encounter with one of their tribe is when I accidently caught on fishing near the coast in Virginia a number of years ago and spent ten minutes dancing around like my head was in fire trying to figure out how I was going to get the thing off the hook without injuring either the eel or myself. Anyway, I took the author's word as to the facts and figures he presented.

The book is well written and is an easy and enjoyable read. My only objection to the work, an this is purely personal, is that I would have like to have read a bit more about the actual eels and less about their impact on some of the cultures addressed in the book. Others may find this a good thing though.

As with most books of this nature lately, I finished it and found myself more than a bit depressed. It would seem that we humans are mucking up the world of eels and if things keep going in the current direction, we may soon only be able to read about yet another extinct animal.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Wet and slimy... and sacred? (3.5 stars) September 11, 2010

By J. Green VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I think most people know that salmon are born in freshwater rivers and migrate to the oceans where they spend their lives before returning to the river of their birth to spawn. But who knew that freshwater eels do the exact opposite? They're born in the ocean and then find their way into freshwater rivers around the world. They'll spend their lives - perhaps as long as 50 to 100 years - in those freshwater rivers before migrating back to the place of their birth in the ocean to spawn and die. Interestingly, however, no one has seen them spawning and the locations aren't precisely known (American and European eels spawn somewhere in the Sargasso Sea, and scientists now think they've found the area where Japanese eels spawn). Nor is it known how they find their way there, or how they find their way into the many rivers where they spend their lives.

Having recently enjoyed Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg, this book caught my eye. Author James Prosek has travelled extensively studying eels and their place in various cultures - the Maori in New Zealand, the east coast of the US, Japan, and the island of Pohnpei in Micronesia (missing is Europe). However - and in contrast to Four Fish - he focuses mostly on the cultural (or perhaps it would be more correct to say "ethnological") aspects of the eel and the book frequently takes a mystical approach to the subject. The chapters on the Maori were especially long (and tedious) with a multitude of personal stories and their reverence for the eel. The Pohnpeians take that reverence even further and practically worship the eel, whereas most other cultures value it as a food item (the Pilgrims likely ate eel instead of turkey at the first Thanksgiving).

Prosek has illustrated the book with his own drawings, which are quite good, but often the actual photo (particularly those of people he met in his travels) would have been better. A good book if you're interested in culture, but disappointing if you're looking for biology and science.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Lacks focus... April 6, 2011

By J. Carroll VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Breeding in secrecy in locations like the Sargasso Sea and then returning to fresh water to live until events draw them back to their breeding grounds, eels are worthy of scientific investigation and are indeed, "mysterious fish" as this book's subtitle states. But instead of an in depth examination of the science, Prosek takes a more all encompassing look at eels. From their cultural importance in Maori and Micronesian cultures to the annual construction of a weir built by a Catskills fisherman, Prosek examines eels from a number of different perspectives, but left me with a feeling that not one topic was covered with enough detail to satisfy and this lack of focus leaves the book lacking a definite purpose. It tries too hard to cover too many variant viewpoints so the end result is an occasionally interesting but generally forgettable look at an interesting creature. The author's presence intrudes too often on the book's stories and the eel often gets lost in the midst of all the culture shock.